While I'm a far cry from Nostradamus, I'd like to share my sociolinguistic predictions with you. AI eliminates bias from educational equationJust as you sit in front of a teacher now ― who often records what you say ― this won't be happening in the future. You'll walk into a room, where amorphous artificial intelligence will test your English. The AI will evaluate your English skills by accessing the linguistic database containing countless recordings of native speakers. Don't be surprised to hear that ― compared to an educated New Yorker ― your English level is at 78 percent. It will even analyze your emotional state during the exam. Artificial intelligence will have no bias whatsoever, so disputing your grade will be impossible. Language use reflects social stratificationAs social stratification worsens, rich English and poor English will diverge dramatically ― to the point of becoming mutually unintelligible languages. This phenomenon is as old as social classes, meaning it's always present throughout history. Non-rhoticity (r-dropping) was a sign of high social status in various regions of the U.S. Just listen to Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Where do you usually look for the most proper variety of a language? Capital cities, because they're associated with wealth and power. The divide in the future will happen along technological lines as well ― anyone who refuses to be technologically enhanced (including electronic currency and microchips) will be a socially excluded philistine. Native/non-native English speaker divide narrowsAn increasing number of countries will adopt English as an official language (much to the chagrin of francophones). Unsurprisingly, English will be increasingly influenced by other languages.English goes back to its rootsI'm sure you know many people who hate English spelling. It won't be a problem in the future. English spelling will reflect pronunciation. Rhoticity (pronouncing the r) will be the norm. Night-nite is just the beginning of the process. Black Mirror meets 1984Enhanced interrogation techniques? Social credit score? Rampant political correctness? That's so cliche. Artificial intelligence will ensure the powers that be have a complete psychological profile of every human alive. You'll be living your life as a psychological puppet, while thinking you're free. As Goethe supposedly said ― the best slave is the one who thinks he's free. Women lead the way in language trendsWe're all familiar with uptalk, and the vocal fry. Women will continue to lead the way in being the language trendsetters. Will the next trend be a sign of an actual empowerment ― and not just a linguistic window dressing? Only time will tell. English as an alien languageJust as we mix languages on Earth, it's reasonable to assume that ― in the first contact scenario ― aliens will mix their own language with earthly languages. With English being the lingua franca on Earth, the alien-human linguistic hybrid could fascinate linguists for years. Just as pidgins (languages constructed to ensure communication between various groups, that don't share a common language) become creoles (the pidgin is now a native language) on Earth, we could see children who are native speakers of the human-alien hybrid language. Then again, the aliens could be telepathic. We just don't know.

Adam Borowski (adam.borowski1985@gmail.com) is a technical Polish-English translator, and a business English teacher.